Memories By A Hospital Bed
by possiblycrazee
Summary: Based on Melethiel's story 'Medical Condition'. Absolutely necessary to read that first to have any idea of what's going on.
1. Chapter 1

Tim McGee sat next to the hospital bed, reading and waiting for the bed's current resident to make an appearance into reality. The figure in the bed stirred and rolled over. McGee put down his book and got his first glimpse of Tony's face since he'd been moved to a private room. McGee hissed in sympathy as he saw the bruises forming on Tony's face.

"Damn, Dinozzo, you busted yourself up something shocking."

When Tony didn't respond, McGee sat back and shook his head. When Tony did wake up, there would be countless people poking him and prodding him and countless more claiming to know 'exactly how he felt'. But for the most part, they would have no idea. Timothy McGee did though; he was one of the few people who could truthfully claim that he knew exactly how Tony was feeling. You see, although the doctors wouldn't say it until they had finished running tests, McGee was almost positive that he knew what was wrong with Tony. Epilepsy. McGee knew because he had it as well, not that he'd ever told anyone.

He'd found out when he was sixteen. Just 3 days after he'd gotten his learner's license. It still scared the crap out of him. The fact that he could remember everything from what colour underwear he was wearing at the time to the number plate of his car (blue silk boxers and WLR335, for those of you playing at home), but he couldn't remember where that damn bus came from. Hell, he couldn't even remember the bus. Tim frowned as unwanted memories assaulted him.

"_Mom, PLEASE, can I take the car? Please? Please?" sixteen-year-old Timothy McGee begged._

_He laughed and pleaded, half-bouncing and half-running in hyperactive circles around his mother. He'd had his license for three whole DAYS, and they still hadn't let him use the car yet. HIS car. Quite possibly the most beautiful thing without a heartbeat on this earth. And they wouldn't let him use it yet. It was unfair, it was unjust, it was unbelievable, it was un... well it just sucked. _

_Tim's mother gave him a mock glare, "Fine, fine, okay. Just be careful, remember…"_

"… _I'm only a learner. I know, mom" Tim finished, before racing through the house, snatching the keys off the hallstand and tearing through the front door._

_Tim couldn't wipe the smile off his face, he was driving. Driving. Him. With the windows wound right down and the radio turned right up, he looked just like any other teenage driver._

_Without warning, and for no apparent reason, Tim began to blink rapidly, the world around him going in and out of focus. Tim fought to keep his eyes open, this was weird. Then it stopped. Just like that. Worried, Tim pulled over and shook his head. He rubbed his eyes and then stopped, looking at his hands in shock. They were shaking, twitching uncontrollably, as though an electric current was running through them. He clenched them fiercely, waiting for the tremors to pass. When his hands stopped shaking, Tim took a deep breath and started his car back up._

"_Well, that was officially weird", Tim said to himself as he pulled back onto the road._

_He turned the car around and began heading home. He drove through the city, making the familiar turns at the 7-Eleven, then again at the department store. Suddenly the rapid blinking began again. The world began to slide in and out of focus. What was he doing? There was something… driving! Groggily, Tim drew himself together. He had to just keep driving, and then everything would be fine. With a growl, Tim wrenched his eyes back down to the road. _

"_Nearly home, just hang on", he told himself._

_For no reason whatsoever, and scaring him half to death, Tim's head whipped violently to the left. He yanked it forwards again, his mouth dropping open in horror. Around him, the world began to slide out of focus as once again his head was flung to the left against his will. His hands started to twitch again and he whimpered in fear as the car started to drift across the road. Fighting the entire time, Tim felt his head turn forcefully to the left again. Then to his horror, his teeth clenched and his head began to whip back and forth. God it hurt, but there was nothing he could do. His eyes rolled back in his head, he could hear the world around him. Then even that faded and there was nothing._

_He woke up in hospital. Bruised, broken, sore and utterly bewildered. What had happened? He'd been driving, was on his way home, had turned at the 7-Eleven and the department store… then…… hospital. It didn't make sense._

_The next four months went by in a pain-filled, white-washed, antiseptic-smelling blur for Tim. But he did find out what had happened. He'd had a seizure and driven his car into a city bus. He was epileptic and lucky to be alive. Funny, he didn't feel so goddamn lucky!_

McGee shook his head, trying to rid himself of the unwanted memories. The first 3 or 4 months after he was diagnosed was still a sore spot for him. He'd slid into a horrible, fear-induced depression, afraid to leave the house in case he had another seizure, afraid to tell people in case they thought he was a freak. He scowled to himself and forcibly shoved the memories into a back corner of his mind. He picked up his book and resumed reading, if Tony felt anything like he did after a seizure; he wouldn't be sailing on the good ship Reality for a while yet.

Tim began to fidget; he was bored with a capital B. There was only so long you could sit in a hospital chair and read silently. Even though Tony was his friend, even though he wanted to be there when he woke up to let him know he had a kindred spirit in Tim. Kindred spirit? Where the hell did that come from? Tim snorted with laughter and made a mental note to stop watching Oprah on his days off. He stiffly eased himself out of the chair, wincing as his joints cracked and popped. He walked over to the door, holding an internal debate about whether starvation or death-by-hospital-cafeteria-food was the nicest way to die.

Making up his mind that he would at least get a coffee from the cafeteria, he headed down the hall. Tim knew these halls like the back of his hand. Out of Tony's room, turn left, down the hall, turn right at the vending machine, then left at the nurse's station and take the elevator down to level 2. Tim turned right at the vending machine and froze in the middle of the hallway. Standing at the nurse's station were Kate, Ducky and Abby. But giving poor Alice (Tim knew almost everyone in the neurology ward by name) hell was Special Agent Leroy Jethro "Second-B-Is-For-Bastard" Gibbs.

"Oh no, no, no, no, no. This is not happening." Tim muttered under his breath, "OK, Tim, no biggie, what's the worst that could happen? You can't be fired coz you're epileptic. Hey, he doesn't even know you're epileptic, you could… No. Gotta tell him. OK, here goes."

Tim took a deep breath and carried on walking down the hall. Abby noticed him first and gave him a wave. He smiled weakly and waved back, then focused his attention on his boss.

"Uh Boss…" he began.

There was no answer, Gibbs just carried on giving Alice a hard time.

"Boss…" he said again, a bit louder.

Alice shot him a desperate look as Gibbs' ranting reached a crescendo.

"BOSS!" he yelled.

Gibbs whirled around and fixed him with a glare. Ooh boy, if looks could kill, then there would have been a mummified Timothy McGee standing in front of him right about then.

"What now, McGee?" Gibbs barked, giving him the scowl that had sent many a bureaucrat running screaming in the opposite direction.

Oh, damn, this was a conversation he REALLY didn't want to have.


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER TWO**

"Uh… well… Tony's in here, boss. He's still out cold." McGee stammered, trying desperately not to flinch, Gibbs was like a dog, if you showed your fear you were screwed.

"Tim?" Alice said hesitantly, looking from Gibbs to McGee and back again.

"It's OK, Alice, I got this. But, do you think you could send Dr. Harding up here, please?" Tim smiled, reassuring the shaken nurse.

"Sure thing. He's on rotation right now, but I'll send him up as soon as he's finished," Alice said, backing away from Gibbs and walking rapidly down the hall, back to the nurses station muttering something that appeared to contain the word 'bastard'.

"Well?" asked Gibbs, as he turned to face McGee, face like a thundercloud with a hernia.

Tim straightened his shoulders, looked Gibbs square in the eye and began to speak as though he were giving a report on a case, not his friend in a hospital bed.

"The doctors won't be absolutely positive until Dinozzo wakes up, and they run a few waking tests. They still need to run an MRI and another EEG while he's awake, but unless something completely out of the blue turns up in one of those tests then they're pretty sure he has epilepsy."

Ducky nodded to himself and said, "Ah yes, that does explain young Anthony's unusual symptoms. I'm surprised I didn't see it before. You know, Alexander the Great was an epileptic, his seizures were one of the reasons everyone thought he was a god, and if I remember rightly…"

McGee snorted with laughter, and then grinned to himself at the mental image his mind presented of Tony dressed in a toga, trying to pick up scantily clad women with the bragging rights on his seizures.

Saying "Come on, Duckman," and rolling her eyes, Abby grabbed the still-yammering doctor's wrist and led him down the hall, pausing only to ask the still-pale Alice for Tony's room number.

Kate looked down the hall at Abby and Ducky's retreating backs, fidgeting slightly and looking as though she wanted to be anywhere but here. Refusing to look McGee in the eye, Kate said abruptly "Well, if he's still out of it, there's no real reason for me to sit by his bed and mope. I'm going back to NCIS."

Gibbs nodded and gave her a list of things she could be doing once she was back at the office. But McGee wasn't listening. He was watching Kate's eyes. McGee frowned as something that could only be described as pure, unadulterated fear flitted back and forth behind Kate's normally calm and determined eyes. He continued to watch her even as she turned and walked rapidly down the hall away from him.

"McGee?"

"Hmm…? Oh. Yes, boss?"

"Epilepsy?"

"Yes, boss."

"Seizures?"

"Yes, boss. Apparently the strobe lights from the club triggered the seizure that landed him in hospital, but all the symptoms he showed previously can be traced back to some form of light source. For example, that first time he blanked at work, he was just finishing up a report on his computer. The second time he blanked, he was down in Abby's lab looking at results on the big screen. That time in the car, it was a bright sunny day at about three in the afternoon; the sun would have been glaring off of just about everything."

"So, in other words, what you're trying to tell me, McGee, is that Tony faked some disease in order to get out of work?"

There was a reason Tim McGee never lost his temper, never got upset and always appeared to be the soft-spoken, calm, almost timid man that the NCIS team knew. To Tim, it was a very good reason. It saved him pain, broken bones and blood loss. It also saved him countless hours of scans and tests. It wasn't who Tim McGee always was or wanted to be, but if it saved him the pain and confusion of the seizures that always followed him losing his temper, then it was worth it.

But with his boss' last comment, Tim McGee suddenly found he didn't give a damn about the two black eyes he knew he'd be sporting the next day, he didn't give a damn about the migraine that he knew was going to eat at his head for the next week. And with the pig-headed ignorance of his boss' words ringing in his ears, McGee suddenly found that he didn't give a damn whether Gibbs found out about his epilepsy. The man was wrong, wrong about him, wrong about Tony, hell, the man was just plain wrong. And Tim McGee was gonna make sure he knew it.


	3. Chapter 3

**CHAPTER 3**

"What was that boss?" Tim's eyes widened as his boss' last comment began to register.

"You heard. Is Tony faking some ridiculous illness so he can get out of doing his job? Or has he lost the plot and created a non-existent illness to blame for it?"

McGee's eyes went impossibly wide. Did he just say…? That son-of-a… No, Tim, stay calm, don't lose your cool.

"With respect, sir," McGee said tightly, his anger barely controlled in his voice, "epilepsy is a legitimate neurological condition that affects 1 in every 900 people in the world."

"1 in every 900?" Gibbs said, giving McGee a skeptical look.

"That's right, boss. Doctor Harding, the neurologist that examined Tony, says that he probably developed it in his late teens, but that the whole thing with the pneumonic plague made it manifest itself."

"Uh-huh," said Gibbs, looking as though he'd be more likely to believe that Carson from Queer Eye was straight, than the scientific information Tim had just given him.

Tim's eyes narrowed, his anger beginning to show through.

"You don't believe me, sir?"

"McGee, you and I both know that Tony, while being a good agent, has a few unresolved issues. Being handcuffed to that murderer, the incident with Ari, the pneumonic plague. I saw this all the time in the Marines. You get a few guys who can't take the pressure, so they throw themselves on the floor, roll their eyes, twitch for a couple of minutes and get their discharge without having to get their hands dirty. I just thought Tony was made of tougher stuff than this, I never thought he'd go this far."

"Go this far?" Tim all but yelled, causing Ducky and Abby to stick their heads around the corner of Tony's door, twin looks of shock on their faces.

"Oh dear," Ducky murmured to Abby.

"I know," replied Abby, "How about I go and get that nurse before this all goes hinky?"

"Thank you, Abigail," said Ducky absently, as Abby took off down the hall.

Ducky moved inconspicuously down the hall, closer to where the two men were standing. He watched the scene in front of him unfold with worried eyes; this was not going to end nicely.

"Go this far?" Tim repeated, fighting to keep his voice down, it was after all a hospital.

"Damn it, Gibbs! Tony suffered through a four minute tonic clonic seizure. Not to mention the three absence seizures, one of which could have got him killed!" McGee hissed at his boss.

Gibbs' eyes widened in surprise at the tone in the younger agent's voice. The only time he had heard McGee get this emotional was when he, Gibbs, ordered the younger agent to tell the Deputy Secretary of Defense to 'Stick it'. The low, intense, angry voice coming out of the young man's mouth just wasn't that of Timothy McGee.

Then Gibbs' eyes narrowed. McGee seemed to know an awful lot about this whole mess. It didn't sound like he was just repeating what a doctor told him either. In fact, it almost sounded like he was speaking from experience.

"You seem to know an awful lot about this, McGee," Gibbs said suspiciously.

"I should," McGee snapped back, his patience wearing thin, "I've had epilepsy since I was sixteen. So I KNOW that it's not something you can fake, regardless of whatever the hell you think you saw in the Marines. Did you ever stop to think about the people who suffer from it? Or did you just yell 'COWARD' as their ambulance was driving away? Did you ever consider Tony in all of this? Did you even… …ah damn."

Tim felt the familiar fuzziness in his head, looked down and saw the familiar twitching in his hands. He sighed in resignation as the world slid in and out of focus. Any second now his head would… yep, there it goes. Oh wonderful.


	4. Chapter 4

**CHAPTER 4**

Caitlin Todd sat in her car in the hospital car park, staring into space, silent tears rolling down her cheeks. Epilepsy? Not again, not again. It still hurt knowing that she couldn't save Evan. Although logically she knew it wasn't her fault Evan was dead, Kate couldn't help but blame herself. Now Tony, as well? This was just too much. Evan was smaller than she was and she still couldn't save him, how the hell was she going to be able to help Tony?

"_Katie, come play with me. Please? Pretty please?" 6-year-old Evan Todd stared up at his 15-year-old sister Caitlin, pulling out all stops and using his huge blue eyes to his advantage._

_The two were going swimming later that afternoon, but when you're 6, 2 hours seems like an eternity._

"_Not now, Ev, I'm busy," Caitlin said reluctantly, "Aw, Ev, no don't do the eye thing. Come on, Evan."_

_Making the best puppy-dog-eyes he could at his sister, Evan tried one last time, "Please, Katie?"_

_If there was one thing that never failed to work on Caitlin Todd, it was Evan's puppy-dog-eyes. Evan knew he always got his own way when he did the eye thing. So he did it all the time._

"_OK, OK," Caitlin gave her brother a mock glare, "You gotta stop doing that, Ev." _

_Taking his sister's hand, Evan just grinned cheekily at her. Kate shook her head, grabbed their swimming bags, yelled to their mother that she was taking Evan swimming and began the 15 minute walk to the pool._

_Kate sat with her feet dangling in the water, reading her book, while Evan splashed around her, kept afloat by his rubber ring. Kate was so engrossed in her book that she didn't notice her baby brother's normally exuberant splashing getting weaker and weaker. Kate first heard a cough, then a wheeze, and looked up._

"_Oh God, Oh God, Oh God!" Kate panicked, hurling her book to the side and diving into the pool._

_Evan was face down in the water, his tiny face contorted and blue, limbs thrashing wildly and his eyes wide and rolled back in his head, only showing the whites. Kate reached for him, grabbing his waist and trying to roll him over in the water like she was taught in her swimming lessons. One of Evan's tiny feet caught her in the stomach, knocking her under and forcing her to swallow a mouthful of water. Kate kicked her way back to the surface, breaking the water and screaming for help. The back of Evan's wildly jerking head smashed into Kate's face. The water around the two siblings began to turn red. Whose blood was that? Kate didn't know. _

"_Evan, please, please, stop struggling. Stop. It'll be OK. Please be OK."_

_As if on cue, Evan's tiny body ceased its wild struggle. But it wasn't ok; it would never be ok again. Little Evan was dead. _

Kate wiped her eyes, blew her nose and checked her make-up in the mirror. Shaking her head, she rummaged through her bag, pulled out her compact and made herself look somewhat respectable again.

She was determined. She couldn't have saved Evan, but to hell be damned if she was going to watch Tony die too. She knew in her head that epilepsy wasn't what killed her brother, but she knew it didn't help much either. She nodded her head decisively to herself. She, Caitlin Todd, was going to help Tony learn to live with this, she'd protect him, and she'd save him like she was unable to save Evan. With that thought in mind, Kate got out of her car, hit the central locking and walked with a determined step back into the hospital.


	5. Chapter 5

**CHAPTER 5**

Kate walked back into the hospital, her step determined. She made her way (getting lost twice) back up to the neurology ward. The minute the elevator door pinged open, she wished it hadn't. It was bedlam. Steeling herself, she strode forward to try and see what was going on. Her jaw dropped and she froze. A large pool of blood decorated the hallway floor.

"Hey lady, MOVE!"

The shout came from her left, startling her. Turning to the voice to give the man who owned it a piece of her mind, Kate gasped. Lying on the gurney the rude man was trying to push was Tim. Covered in blood from his dislocated nose, both eyes almost swollen shut, a gash on his temple, his face still sporting a bluish tinge.

_Cyanosis. Commonly found on asphyxiation victims. Lack of oxygen to the blood stream…_

The information leapt unbidden to Kate's mind. She pushed it away with a shudder.

_Evan Michael Todd. Born 6/9/1984. Died 5/7/1990. With the angels now…_

Kate shuddered again, shoving the image of her baby brother's gravestone to the back of her mind. Tim… She had to focus on Tim. Moving aside so the gurney could pass her, Kate looked up the hallway to see Abby, almost in tears, making her way towards her.

"Abby… I… WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED HERE?"

"Uh… well… Gibbs said something to McGee, me and the Duck don't know what yet, and McGee lost his temper, he started yelling about Gibbs and the Marines and fakers, and then he had a seizure. A bad one. A REALLY bad one. He turned all blue and…," the Goth lab rat choked back a sob and continued, "… and now they're putting him in the room next to Tony's, after they get him cleaned up and… Oh, I hope he's ok."

Kate's mind reeled. McGee? Seizure? Tim was epileptic too? She shook her head. Doesn't matter, she told herself, just means I'll have to protect him too. Then her eyes narrowed.

"So, McGee only has seizures when he loses his temper?"

"Yeah…"

"And he was talking to Gibbs…"

"Yeah…"

"GIBBS!" Kate roared at the shell-shocked former Marine, "WHAT THE HELL DID YOU SAY TO HIM?"

Ducky turned to the angry Special Agent and spoke in a soothing, yet rapid voice. Explaining what happened to someone in Kate's situation would take every diplomatic bone in the doctor's body. He explained what Gibbs had told McGee and when Kate's eyes turned murderous, he hastened to add that Gibbs had had no idea about epilepsy or McGee or anything, really.

Kate fought to control her anger. Goddamn it, Gibbs could be such a… a… BASTARD! She got herself under control, walked past the still shell-shocked Gibbs and followed Abby down the hall to Tony's room.

Sitting by Tony's bed, Kate was still haunted by memories of her baby brother. She had said her final goodbyes to him whilst he was in a bed just like this one. She shuddered.

"_Mom, I don't wanna go in there," Caitlin Todd hung back, pulling on her mother's elbow. _

"_Be strong Katie, you need to say your goodbyes," her mother replied in a shaky voice, curling an arm around her waist and gently pushing Caitlin into the room._

_Caitlin Todd walked slowly into the room, looking at her feet, at the walls, at the ceiling, everywhere but the hospital gurney where her baby brother lay (his corpse, a malicious voice whispered inside her head). The nurse at her brother's bedside gave her an encouraging smile and beckoned her forward. Caitlin walked up to stand by her brother, noting that he was now dressed in his favourite blue t-shirt that was at least 3 sizes too big and the horrible striped shorts that his mother had tried to throw away on many occasions._

_Frowning slightly, Caitlin noticed a mark on her brother's shoulder. Reaching over, she tried to brush it away. Her fingers brushed across cold, dead skin and metal. Metal? Evan's t-shirt slipped off his shoulder. Caitlin gasped then gagged as she caught sight of the deep 'Y' shaped cut across her baby brother's chest. They cut him open. Couldn't they just leave him be? He's dead. Let him rest for God's sake!_

"Kate?" a foggy, disoriented voice cut through her horrible thoughts.

Kate turned to the voice and gave Tony a watery smile. She leaned over and pressed the call button to let Nurse Alice know Tony was awake.

"You gave us one hell of a scare, Dinozzo," Kate told him, keeping her voice low, "Do you remember what happened at the club?"

The morphine drip Tony was on made him babble slightly.

"Club? Kate, why were we at a club? Did you finally agree to ride the Italian Stallion? Oh hell, did I just say that? Damn, I didn't do anything stupid, did I? Why am I in hospital? Why does my face hurt? And… pass me the basin I'm gonna hurl."


	6. Chapter 6

**CHAPTER SIX**

Doctor Donald Mallard walked down the stairs to the hospital archives in a companionable silence with Doctor Harding. The British ME respected and liked the neurologist. Unlike most neurologists, Harding was willing to dumb things down for those who didn't understand the more detailed points of neuroscience. This was just about everybody. Reaching a hand out for the door to the archive room, Ducky was stopped by a hand on his wrist.

"Now, you can't say I didn't warn you…" the neurologist began, his hand still on Ducky's arm.

"Didn't warn me about what?" the ME replied, his eyes narrowing suspiciously.

"The previous archivist and his archiving skills… or… more appropriately, his considerable lack thereof."

Ducky growled softly to himself as he searched through the filing cabinet. The archivist at this hospital needed to be shot then stuffed and put on display for all to see. Doctor Harding grinned at the ME.

"Far be it from me to say 'I told you so'…"

Ducky shot him a glare, then with a triumphant smile pulled out the file he was looking for. _McGee, Timothy Daniel. _He took the file over to an easy chair, sat down and began to read.

Ducky didn't know how much time had passed before he heard the soft footsteps coming down the stairs. He glanced up to see Kate hovering uncertainly in the doorway. He smiled at the Agent and gestured for her to take a seat.

"Something troubling you, Caitlin?" he asked.

Ducky frowned as he watched the normally stoic Special Agent's face crumple and the entire story of her brother's death came pouring out. Ducky listened quietly then when the Agent had finished, he opened his arms and let her cry herself out on his shoulder.

Tony Dinozzo sat up in his hospital bed. The swelling in his jaw had gone down; he'd had the stitches above his eye and in his lip removed and his black eye had faded to a sickly looking greenish-yellow colour. He looked over at the doctor sitting by his bed in confusion. Ducky was explaining epilepsy to him, what it meant, how he'd have to adjust, what had happened to McGee and Kate's brother.

"OK, Ducky, and in layman's terms that means…?"

"Well, you will keep having seizures until they find a course of medication that will keep them under control."

"Great. Just goddamn wonderful."

"It could be worse, Anthony."

"Oh yeah, Ducky… How?"

Ducky turned and stared gravely at Tony. Ducky fought to be patient, the young man had just discovered he was going to have seizures for the rest of his life after all. But my word, there were people who suffered multiple seizures a day! Ducky tried to keep himself calm. Now Ducky knew how Gibbs felt, except he was not going to clip Dinozzo upside the head, no matter how much he wanted to.

"Well, Anthony, you could have seizures that determine who you are as a person, like young Timothy over there. You, Gibbs and Kate give him hell and tell him he should stop being so timid, but he can't change that or he'll have more seizures. You could have seizures in which you stop breathing, also like Timothy. Did you know he can feel the first 15 seconds of every seizure he has? Everything he hits, every bone he breaks, every muscle he strains, not being able to breath, knowing he can't do anything about it. Fighting the entire time. But it could be different again; you could have seizures in water, like Kate's brother. At least that poor boy never knew what hit him. He didn't have time to be scared of death."

When Ducky saw the horrified look on Tony's face he struggled to compose himself. It wouldn't do to have Tony feel like he'd been given a life sentence.

"I'm sorry, Anthony. I'm just trying to make you see that what you have isn't as bad as it could be. It isn't a life sentence. You aren't going to have to drastically change your life because of this."

"It's OK, Ducky. I think I needed that."

Here Tony paused, his head bowed, seemingly lost in thought. Ducky watched as Tony ran a hand over the pink scars that marked where his stitches had been, watched as Tony ghosted shaking fingertips over his once-swollen jaw and healing black eye. Tony raised his head and stared at the wall that separated his and McGee's room.

"McGee feels all of this?" Tony asked, gesturing to his face, not taking his eyes off the wall.

"For about the first 15 seconds, then the seizure takes over and he loses consciousness. He fights it and he shouldn't," the doctor said softly.

Tony shuddered, "The poor bastard," he whispered, "I only felt it when I came to, and that was bad enough. But to feel it when it happens and not be able to do anything…" He shuddered again.

"When can I go home?" Tony asked Ducky out of the blue.

"Well, the doctor said you could go home as soon as you could walk out of your room," Ducky answered fighting a smirk.

"What! Why didn't you say so? I would've gone home ages ago. I hate hospitals," Tony rambled as he swung his legs over the side of the bed. He hoisted himself out of the bed, steadying himself as the room lurched alarmingly. He made his way more carefully over to the bathroom, changed into the clothes Ducky handed him through the door and slowly but steadily made his way down to the nurses' station.

Signing his medical release forms, Tony was about to wave goodbye to the hospital forever. He stopped, however, looking over at the closed door to Tim's room. Ducky had said that the Probie had been a pretty well permanent visitor when he was out of it. Sighing, he moved around the desk and quietly let himself into Tim's room. He winced as he saw Tim's broken face, and then sat down in the uncomfortable hospital chair next to his bed, flashing Abby a smile, when the Goth raised her eyebrows at him.

"He did sit with me until Gibbs showed up," Tony started in defensively, "and he is SO going to owe me when he wakes up."


	7. Chapter 7

**CHAPTER SEVEN**

"Damn it, damn it, damn it!"

Tim McGee looked over the top of his computer screen at Tony. He raised his eyebrows as his colleague searched through his drawers frantically. He bit back a smile as Tony began cursing foully in Italian when he couldn't find what he was looking for. Still watching the free entertainment Tony was providing him with; Tim reached down into his laptop bag and felt around.

This had only happened twice in the three months since they had found out about Tony's epilepsy. But, as McGee knew well, it happened to everyone. Tony had forgotten to take his medication before he left and only realized when he showed up to work that morning. The first time it had happened, McGee had given Tony some of the medication (the two were on the same kind) he kept stashed in his desk and quietly suggested he do the same thing.

Curling his hand around his sheet of the medication that he knew Tony was looking for; McGee pulled it out of the bag and lobbed it at his colleague's head. The silvery sheet containing the purple pills the two epileptics referred to as 'the horse tablets' sailed through the air and hit Tony in the temple. McGee couldn't help it; he cracked up laughing at the look of surprise on Tony's face. Tony threw McGee a mock glare which then turned into a sheepish grin, and nodded his thanks to the younger agent.

Gibbs watched the entire exchange from his desk. He shook his head at the friendly bickering between the two, and then winced internally as he remembered the things he had said to, and about, both men in the hospital. Talk about 'open mouth, insert foot'. It was hard to believe just how wrong he had been about the two men. He smiled to himself as he remembered the 'talks' each incredibly protective member of his team had given him prior to McGee and Dinozzo's return to the office.

"_Bossman," Abby stated calmly as the normally perky Goth labrat stared down at him from her position above his desk._

"_Abs," Gibbs replied, wondering what he'd done this time._

"_You do realize that you are mostly to blame for McGee's latest seizure, don't you?"_

_Gibbs blanched internally, ok, that's what he'd done this time._

"_I know, Abs, I already spoke to him in the hospital. I apologized, he accepted my apology."_

"_I know, Gibbs. But the thing is, you were ignorant and instead of asking questions and enlightening yourself on the subject, you reacted in a way that makes you no better than the people who were claiming that Tony had been possessed by demon spirits."_

"_Thank you, Abs."_

"_No problem, Bossman, just don't do it again. Or I won't reboot your PDA again. EVER."_

Gibbs' glance flickered over to Kate's desk. Her 'talk' had been by far the most… well… enlightening, one could say. He grinned to himself; the former Secret Service Agent hadn't even waited until they'd left the hospital before ripping him a new one.

"_Gibbs," the word was almost barked at him by the former Secret Service Agent._

"_Kate," he'd responded, with a reasonably good idea of what was to come._

_Kate's voice softened slightly, "Gibbs, did you know I had a brother?"_

_Whatever Gibbs was expecting her to say, it certainly wasn't that._

"_No."_

"_Well, I did. Evan Michael Todd. He died when he was just six years old."_

"_I'm sorry for your loss, Kate."_

"_Don't give me that crap, Gibbs, just listen; I'm trying to make a point," Kate paused, seemingly collecting her thoughts; "I was 15 when Evan died. For the few weeks leading up to his death, he'd been a bit vague and spacey, but my mom had just chalked it up to it being so damn hot. But the day he died he'd been his usual bright, cheerful self. So mom let me take him swimming. We'd been at the pool about half an hour when Evan had a seizure in the water. I tried to help him, but his thrashing kept knocking me under. He drowned before we could get him out. He was epileptic. We didn't even know what that was, let alone that Evan had it."_

_Gibbs stayed quiet, shocked into silence by Kate's story._

"_I couldn't help my baby brother, Gibbs, but I'll be damned if I'm gonna sit back and watch you or anyone else destroy Tony's and Tim's careers because they're epileptic."_

_Without another word, Special Agent Caitlin Todd stalked through the car park, got into her car and drove away, leaving Gibbs standing stunned in the middle of the parking lot._

"Um, Agent Gibbs? Sir?" the hesitant voice of Jimmy Palmer, Ducky's bespectacled lab assistant, interrupted his thoughts. Gibbs shook himself back into reality and looked at Palmer.

"Um, I have the results from the post-mortem in the Hauser case. If you could sign here and here, please?"

Gibbs signed the evidence forms, taking his copy, before sending Ducky's assistant back down to the morgue. Placing the forms on his desk, his thoughts turned to the 'talk' the doctor himself had given him.

"_Well, Jethro, you have dug yourself a rather large hole this time haven't you?" _

"_Don't Ducky, I've already had Kate and Abby tear me a new one."_

_The British Medical Examiner snorted with laughter at the mental picture of the normally formidable NCIS Special Agent being cowed into submission by the two women he worked with. He met the stony glare Gibbs gave him with a calmly raised eyebrow and continued speaking._

"_What do you intend to do about McGee and Dinozzo?"_

"_I don't know. Can they be field agents with epilepsy? Can they safely control a weapon with epilepsy?"_

"_Jethro, young Timothy has dealt with his epilepsy since he was sixteen. You didn't even think it was a possibility until he lost his temper with you in the hospital. He'd been a field agent for almost eighteen months and passed his rifle range test with flying colours every time."_

"_I know, Duck, but…"_

"_But, what, Jethro?"_

"_What if one of them has a seizure in the middle of a case? Or what if one of them gets hurt because a suspect takes advantage of the seizures?"_

"_What if the next cup of coffee you buy has been laced with poison and YOU go into convulsions?" the doctor retaliated, "We would deal with it, Jethro. We just have to make sure that the triggers for Anthony and Timothy's seizures are removed as best we can. That means requisitioning a glare screen for Anthony's computer and making sure he always has those special order sunglasses he goes on about. It also means cutting young Timothy some slack and not giving him a reason to lose his temper like he did in the hospital." _

Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs sighed. His office had pretty much gone back to normal now. It had been awkward for the first few weeks after they came back. Gibbs couldn't help but feel a pang of guilt every time he had seen the bruises healing on McGee's face or had caught Tony reaching up to scratch the still-pink scar tissue above his eye. But that had faded, and was now replaced with a quiet camaraderie between the two epileptics and a sense of fierce protectiveness from the rest of the team, himself included.


	8. Chapter 8

Belated Author's Note……

Freaking HUGE thank-you to Melethiel, without whom this story would have just stayed inside my warped little head. Melethiel got out her pointed poking sticks and basically poked and prodded until I wrote and posted this. You're a legend, buddy, thanks!

And a big thank-you to everyone who reviewed. I would've just left it if you hadn't.

And, last but not least, a shameless plug…

Check out my CSI:Miami story 'Brothers'. Nothing like this one, but still not half bad if I do say so myself.


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